“A true wartime scene. When the men are gone, when only women washing clothes on riverbanks and plowing the fields are left. As the ‘Chinh Phu Ngam’ poem described—in isolation, the village is lonely…”
His thought abruptly ends as the crowd recognizes him.
“Long live the president, long live, long live!”
“The president will live forever with the mountains and rivers!”
“Long live the Democratic Republic of Vietnam!”
“Long live the president!”
He realizes that the singing to send off the soul has stopped, because all the musicians with their flutes and zithers have stood up to get a better look at him. Those wearing headbands of mourning with their eyes still swollen also come out to welcome the honored guest:
“They have left the corpse alone in the house. My visit, it turns out, has brought disruption to this family.”
At first the cheering is awkward and reserved but then turns more heartfelt as if everyone forgets that they should be in mourning. This thought makes him feel that his presence is inappropriate. Waiting for the crowd to be less enthusiastic, he gestures with his hand to signal for silence. In an instant, everyone is dead silent. His heart palpitates as he recognizes his ability to persuade and the power of his personal presence. That strength has not been lost with the years.
“Dear kith and kin.”
As he speaks, he observes the eyes of the people. In those eyes there is a foolish adoration, an unconditional submission that he has known all too well. Now, that longstanding perception no longer excites him.
“Why can’t they love me differently? Why can’t they both love and respect everyone equally?” he thinks to himself as he continues to address them:
“Dear kith and kin, please let me thank you sincerely for the heartfelt words of welcome with which you greet me. Don’t forget that we are here to attend a funeral, not a meeting or a conference. I am just an ordinary visitor like everyone here. I suggest that we all be quiet, everyone returning to their places so that the funeral can proceed smoothly.”
Always his words command; commands full of supernatural might or saintly power, even he doesn’t know for sure. The people quietly disperse, so quietly that he can hear his own breath. The family returns and stands around the coffin. The musicians resume the melodramatic singing to lead the departure into eternity:
“.…From dust we return to dust
The turning around comes as it must…”
The guards stand outside. The village chief and Le accompany him to call on the host representing the bereaved family. They have to cross a huge patio, one covered not with tiles but with slabs of green stone each about two feet on a side, placed in perfect alignment and giving the area in front of the house where the funeral is to take place the look more of a temple patio than a country villager’s front yard. The residence compound is built in the form of a “gate”: the main building in the middle, with five very large rooms and antique tiles on the roof, and two houses, one on either side, no less grand, each one also with five rooms facing the large patio. As he quickly looks around, he thinks:
“The doors are high and the rooms are large but when you leave for the last time, you have only your empty hands.” Then, in spite of himself, he sighs deeply.
From behind, Le steps up and gives him an envelope: “Mr. President, this is the money to donate in consolation.”
Mechanically he takes the envelope, not knowing how much money it holds or how much is enough. The memory of generous country customs, the fleeting images of funerals, weddings during his youth, all now faded, have not left a single mark. In his daily life now he never touches money or any other kind of expensive object. In reality he has never had money in his hands though his picture is on every piece of paper currency used throughout the entire nation. But he sees that the eyes of the villagers are discreetly looking at the envelope in his hand, and, for the first time in his life, he is confused about the real value of those flimsy pieces of paper that one can spend.
A suspicion makes him frightened: “How much did they put in it? Will they disappoint these people?”
It is true that life asks us only for hard, practical value. But only far too late do we ever understand just what such value is and where it lies.
“Always after the fact,” he thinks in French.
Another silent sigh resonates within his heart.
“Please, Mr. President, approach the altar.”
The female village chief guides him, going up first with him following; this tall woman with the broad shoulders of a very practiced martial arts adept could be a professional bodyguard.
“Why hasn’t the Ministry of the Interior recruited her for a bodyguard? That is a waste of talent,” he thinks as he steps up before the altar. It is a large standing chest, the upper part for an altar and the lower part for storage, made from four special kinds of wood, elaborately carved with dragons, unicorns, tortoises, and phoenixes with mother-of-pearl inlays, more a work of art than something for household use. The cabinet is placed against the middle of the wall opposite the main door. A large bronze incense burner is smoking. Two vases are filled with amaranths and peonies and varieties of wildflowers. He places the envelope on a large porcelain plate with a deep-jade-colored glaze, filled with other envelopes handmade from all kinds of paper scraps.
“I, your humble servant, am very grateful, Mr. President.”
“I, your humble servant, thank you.”
A woman and a young boy come up before him, formally bowing down on their knees to him. He feels disturbed because people kneel down like that only before sainted spirits or the altar for their ancestors.
“Don’t; no need. Please have the family stand.”
He lifts the child up, realizing that what he had suspected yesterday was correct: the child is about twelve or thirteen. The loosely fitting mourning shift hiding his body makes him look smaller. The mourning headband has slipped down to his nose, but when the boy looks up, he sees a lovely face with long, finely drawn eyebrows and the eyes of a man.
“The child is good-looking; he will be very handsome when he grows up.”
Yesterday, on hearing the child cry out for his father, he could not imagine the boy’s face. To him the boy had been only some child without a name calling out to him but one nevertheless associated with some other child. Now, the boy’s fine face forces his heart to race. That face recalls another face from long ago. A face that has disappeared. His throat suddenly becomes dry. He turns from the child, planning to say something, but he can’t find the right words. Maybe he cries a bit then; Vu comes up and gives him a handkerchief.
“All of us, your humble servants, are grateful to you, sir.”
The voice of a young woman in his ear startles him and he looks up.
The widow had come up right in front of him to thank him. He sees her face drowned in tears under a mourning headband made from plain cloth. She looks young with an attractive face. She appears to be about thirty and no more. Her sudden loss has not diminished the beauty or the vitality of a woman in her springtime. Her complexion is blush white, without a freckle or a brown spot as most country people have, those who spend all day in the rain and the sun on the mountainsides or in the fields. The widow’s peaches-and-cream complexion seems to belong to someone with overflowing good fortune. A face that is extremely difficult to find in a war-torn country. Her eyes are black and full of spunk, graced by long eyebrows that touch her temples—for sure an asset that she had passed down to her son. Those eyes, too, are not frequently found in countrywomen, because they do not reflect any hint of the endurance that marks the character often found in the women of Vietnam. Those eyes look directly at him, without any hesitation or fear.
“With such eyes, she can do anything she wishes,” he thinks and scrambles to find some appropriate words in response:
“We offer our condolences to your family, hoping you and your son will quickly pass through this difficult time.
Make sure your boy completes all his studies.”
“Yes, we will carry out your instruction,” the widow replies right away, as if her answer had been prepared in advance.
Then the village chief asks him to retrace his steps and visit the deceased. He follows mechanically, not knowing the customs and proceedings of an ordinary funeral. This is the first time in his life he has been to the funeral of a common person. After an instant and very suddenly, wailing breaks out behind him:
“Father, oh, Father, why are you leaving us?”
At that moment he notices some twenty more people also in mourning dress; some are in their thirties and forties but there are also younger ones. They push their way forward, cuddled close to one another to form a gang that could overwhelm the widow and her son. They form up as a choir, voicing their laments as a song accompanied by instruments. This group stands to the left of the coffin, the young mother and child to the right.
“Two forces, two children; this point seems uncontested,” he reasons, and his eyes wander, looking for a picture of the deceased. He immediately sees a chair with an intricately carved back close to the coffin; on it is a large framed picture bordered by a black cloth.
“Ah, here he is! It’s not a father still in his thirties or close to forty like I guessed yesterday…”
The commander of the two watchful companies to the right and the left of the coffin is in his fifties, or older. Only his face does not reflect the weariness, or the equanimity, poise, patience of the faces of other men his age. His face is square, with trace lines of adventures, and reflects both pride and vitality. His eyes stare straight out with a confrontational and provocative look mixed with a touch of malice. The bridge of his nose is large and straight like a bamboo stick. A beautiful mouth, with regular lips, is seated in a long and bushy beard, curly like that of a Caucasian, and jet black.
“This face testifies to what has happened to this unfortunate one, even right in this house.”
He is shocked: all his guessing, his thoughts, his emotions, are put in play like boats bouncing on the water. An old understanding about oppression also immediately pours out like waterfalls wildly rushing down to sink those boats. A burning liquid enters into his nostrils. Smoke floats in front of him, with gray colors of storm clouds and the hazy purple of poppies.
“Eldest brother, we should leave!” Vu says behind him.
Feeling a hand gently touching his, he suddenly understands that he must awake. Turning to the group in plain white gowns and with white headbands to the left of the coffin, he says:
“I offer my condolences to the family. I hope we will all overcome this very painful and sad circumstance and quickly regain normal lives.”
It’s the turn of this family to acknowledge his consoling words with all the adamant and resentful feelings they have stored in their hearts. Patiently, he waits for the wailing to subside before he takes his leave. But it seems that his comforting comments only give an excuse for those strong, repressed feelings to reveal themselves after the loss. The cries, the whining, of some twenty people only become more intense.
“Oh, Father, Father, how could you leave us in the middle of a terrible situation? Father, you left, but all the problems were not explained, all the resentments were not revealed.”
“Father, oh, Father, please come back and listen carefully…your children, your grandchildren, all your own flesh and blood are here…”
At this moment it is the village chief who swiftly helps him escape this complicated situation: “Stop. Every pain must have its limits. Besides, the president needs to preserve his health to serve national priorities. I propose that the family disperse so that we can take the president back to rest.”
After speaking, she pushes out her muscular arms to back the mourners away on both sides, with all the strength and precision of the edge of a bulldozer’s blade. Before he realizes what is happening, he finds himself crossing the stone-tiled patio to the compound gate. A few bodyguards gather close around him. The four musicians stand and play the national anthem to bid him on his way.
The familiar tune arises. The president is now forced to stop in the middle of the patio with his guards, seeing at a glance that the village chief is glaring at the musicians, not knowing whether to compliment or threaten them. In any case, everyone has to wait for the song to stop.
The national anthem! The national anthem!
He is as dumbfounded as if he were hearing it for the first time; for years the verses with their deep meanings had been imprinted in his mind. Is this the impact of the funeral or have his own mental abilities changed over the years? Or do the folk instruments bring on a peculiar expression to a quite familiar piece of music? It’s impossible for him to explain this clearly, but a terror invades his soul as he hears the national anthem played on a one-string zither, a flute, and a two-string fiddle. Why is the melody so very sad? A patriotic song for a nation but one so sentimental and so full of melancholy? As if this upbeat and energetic melody hid within its notes evening temple bells and the howling of night owls. As if this provocative singing brings out parallel images that befit its ambience: dark, foggy horizons, deserted and cold streams, banks full of rubbish, a cemetery that spreads itself out infinitely under the sheltering wings of flying crows.
“Is it old age that makes me easily melancholic, or do these folk instruments bring to the national anthem a sadness that it does not usually promote? Because music for Sending Off the Soul is only appropriate for traditional songs like ‘Lan Tham, Sa Lech Chenh, Sam Soan’?”
He can’t find an answer. A pain twists in his heart. He looks up to the blue sky beyond the tops of the bamboo, trying hard to chase away such distressing thoughts, but to no avail.
“Let me know who your friend is; then I will tell you who you are. As such, I can say that: let me hear a people’s songs and I will tell you that people’s fate! Could it be true that a people’s fate is determined by its songs, by its oldest forms of dances, by songs that accompany a people like a companion for eternity, like your shadow, like the entwined male and female sides of some asexual fish? Can human beings change their fate or not, and in life can their efforts bring on no more than a small percentage of all that will accumulate in a lifetime?”
“Mr. President, please step along,” the chubby guard, who stands close behind him, whispers.
The president turns around and waves his hands to bid farewell to the musicians, then heads toward the gate. There the two platoons of guards are ready. They resume their previous formation to head back to where the helicopter is waiting.
7
“Venerable Abbess, we bother you too much.”
“Mr. President, we are honored to serve you.”
“Venerable Abbess, it might just be that our discussion will go on all afternoon. If so, your afternoon chanting will be interrupted.”
“Mr. President, as ordained people we pray throughout our lives. When we need to stop, we stop. Buddha’s spirit is within us even in our silence.”
“Venerable Abbess, aren’t you afraid that the sacred one will scold you?” he asks, half joking, half serious, with a smile that hides multiple meanings.
“Honorable Sir, if a Buddha did that, then he’d no longer be a Buddha,” the abbess replies with a smile, a gentle smile, then walks out of the room.
He and Vu step aside as the nun passes by. The smell of soapberry spreads in the air, because the nun’s clothes are washed in soapberry. There are three old soapberry trees in the corner of the temple, healthy and bushy, with lots of pods all year long. He often saw the nuns go to the garden and bring back full baskets, then line up the berries to dry them on a steel grate resembling a huge fish grill. On afternoons with pouring rain when vapors from crevices rose up to mix with the white cloud, the two women would sit silently while the berries were drying, their silence stretching on until the evening meal, when a nun would light altar candles and tweak the oil lamp on the old bamboo table.
&nbs
p; “What are they thinking in that lingering silence? Maybe they don’t think about anything at all; many people can’t imagine that they are really so simple and intellectually empty that they don’t have much at all to think about. Because those who don’t think, cannot act with so much courage…”
Many times he has asked himself that question. He has never found a satisfying answer. He remembers that the first time he was at the temple he had seen all the doors locked like in a warehouse. He had summoned Le and the administrative officers for a discussion. When he had learned the truth, he had hurriedly ordered that the guards let the abbess and at least two novices return. This had been his primary condition in agreeing to stay at this place for rest and recuperation. Two days later, the guards had brought a group up the mountain. He knew that they were implementing his instructions, but he did not know why such a large group was needed.
“It can’t be that they have agreed to let twelve venerables and nuns return to the temple,” he had thought.
But he had rejected that hypothesis right away because it was improbable. He had backed into his room to observe. It was true that twelve venerables had appeared in the temple patio, but they did not have permission to return. They had come only to accompany their superior back to the old place. According to tradition, that was a way by which students could show their respect to a teacher. He saw ten tall and healthy monks, full of life; because only those with enough physical and mental health would be able to meditate in such isolated mountains. Those ten hefty men surrounded a tiny old woman, not taller than five feet, with a calm face and the very ordinary features of an average Vietnamese woman. She held a bamboo pole in her hand.
“With this very pole, the old lady went down the mountain after the officials forced her to leave the temple, and now, with this same pole she climbed up a mountain over three thousand feet high, needing no one to carry her on their back. And this tiny old lady is over eighty years old!”
Perhaps because the abbess was seven years his elder, he felt embarrassed and sad simultaneously. Perhaps because the legal might that had forced her into exile was his very own political system, of which he was the official spokesperson. He couldn’t find a precise explanation.
The Zenith Page 9